


O Wandering Winds

by yet_intrepid



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Denethor's A+ Parenting, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Gen, Illnesses, Injury, Prophetic Dreams, Visions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-16
Updated: 2015-02-16
Packaged: 2018-03-13 06:12:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3370808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yet_intrepid/pseuds/yet_intrepid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“They say the men of Númenor had visions,” Boromir says. “Prophetic dreams, the like. Perhaps the Valar have looked back to Middle-Earth and favored you—it was deemed a gift, was it not?”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“So was mortality,” Faramir points out. “And it is none the more pleasant for that.”</i>
</p><p>By the time Faramir is told in his sleep of Isildur's Bane, he is already accustomed to seeing with more than his eyes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	O Wandering Winds

**\--SOUTH--**

When the winds are high, the visions come.

Faramir is eighteen the first time, and when he sees Boromir in his mind’s eye he thinks it to be some flash of the imagination his father has cursed in him since his youth. He rises from his bedroll for a drink of water and tries to clear Boromir’s blood from his mind. But the tent moves restlessly in the south wind, and he cannot sleep again.

When the sun rises, a scout comes in with news of an engagement on the other side of the river. That noon the camps converge and he sights Boromir, whose side has been bandaged in haste.

“Faramir!” Boromir cries, in a tone too thin with pain to be properly mirthful. “Come, you must help me tell the healers I need not be sent back to Minas Tirith. They will listen to nothing I say, and I their captain-general!”

Faramir cannot speak. Can only stare, for Boromir’s wound is the selfsame as he saw dealt.

Boromir squints at him. “What has come upon you?” he asks. “Look, I am barely touched; do not stare as though I am on my deathbed.”

“It is not that,” Faramir says. “It is nothing.”

“Nothing,” repeats Boromir, dubiously.

“Nothing that cannot wait,” Faramir amends. “You must allow the healers to perform their ministrations first; you are pale as city-stone.”

Boromir frowns. “You are paler than I. Are you seeing spirits, little brother?”

Faramir laughs, for the guess comes near enough, but he denies it and draws Boromir back to the healers’ tent, convincing him to sit still long enough for a poultice, a proper bandage, and a draught of medicinal tea. Then Boromir is rising again, drawing Faramir aside, and at a word from him the other young soldiers who share Faramir’s tent are scattering to give them privacy.

Boromir sits on Faramir’s bedroll and Faramir shares the space carefully, keeping his elbows well away from his brother’s wound.

“Come,” says Boromir, “ _are_ you seeing spirits? I will not laugh if you are.”

Faramir knows better. “You would laugh.”

“Aye,” Boromir admits. “I would. But I would not doubt you.”

“I have seen no spirits,” Faramir says.

Silence lingers between them. Faramir picks at a loose thread on his blanket.

“What have you seen, then?” Boromir asks at last. “For it is plain as daylight something weighs on you.”

Faramir breathes in deep. “You,” he says. “You, Boromir.”

“Praise be, then, you are not blind.”

“Not now,” says Faramir. “Last night. I saw the battle. Saw you wounded.”

It is Boromir’s turn to breathe deeply, to crease his brow. “You dreamed this?”

“No,” says Faramir. “I was awake, and it came to me. I was not sure, at first—I thought perhaps it was but a manifestation of my fears. But it was too clear for that. And the wound was placed exactly as it is in fact.”

“How was it dealt?” Boromir asks.

Faramir closes his eyes, that he might remember better. “There were two orcs,” he says, “and you slew them both. But as you turned from them, the next had already flanked you. You moved to face him and brought your sword back to defend, but you had overextended, and he was not tall. He slipped the blade under your guard.”

Faramir opens his eyes to find Boromir shaking his head in wonder. “Starlit tombs of the kings,” he mutters. “You saw it as clearly as I.”

“So it would seem,” says Faramir.

“A vision, then,” Boromir says. “They say the men of Númenor had visions. Prophetic dreams, the like. Perhaps the Valar have looked back to Middle-Earth and favored you—it was deemed a gift, was it not?”

“So was mortality,” Faramir points out. “And it is none the more pleasant for that.”

Boromir laughs, then, and Faramir cannot but laugh in answer. It is over, anyway, he thinks, and Boromir will return quickly to health.

They give no more attention to the matter, and word of it never comes to the steward’s ears.

**\--EAST--**

The Rangers of Ithilien often camp unsheltered, but one day in early spring when the wind blows hard from the east, they spare precious time in their travel to camp early and construct lean-tos. Faramir takes first watch by the carefully-built fire, and the rush of the wind bears his spirit to the solid walls of Minas Tirith.

And he knows, then, with piercing certainty, that his father is pacing the halls, that the servants are whispering as they hurry from task to task. He knows that the city is restless, disheartened, and he knows not why.

Then with a curling gust of bitter wind, he sees.

Boromir lies ill, sweating and shivering, too feverish even to complain about being tied to a sickbed. He swallows listlessly as a healer holds a cup to lips, and closes his eyes when she turns away. His breathing is heavy and he struggles to speak, but when the healer turns back to him he gathers his strength.

 _Faramir_ , he says. _Faramir_.

And Faramir, breathing in great lungfuls of sharp air, rouses Mablung.

“I have had a vision,” he says, for ten years have passed, and he is no longer a boy to shy from the truth. “My brother Boromir is gravely ill and I must return to Minas Tirith. I leave you in command.”

“Aye, captain,” says Mablung. “But will you not inform the men yourself?”

“There is no time,” Faramir says. He reaches into his pack for paper and pencil, hastily scribbling a few words. “If they require proof, give them this, but I think they will not. Continue on the course we planned, and use your best judgment about any engagements. I wish you all safety and success.”

“And you, captain,” says Mablung, and Faramir thinks he starts to say something more, but he does not hear. Already he has turned and is saddling his horse, setting his course into the wind towards Minas Tirith.

The journey takes him two days. He clatters into the city without explanation, turns over his horse to the stablehands, and fairly runs from there. There is no time, no time.

And yet as he turns towards Boromir’s bedroom, he hears a voice behind him.

“Faramir!”

Faramir turns. “My lord father.”

“Were you not commanded to be in Ithilien?”

This is not a family meeting, then; it is a military one. Faramir straightens. “Aye, my lord, and have just returned thence.”

“You were given no order to leave your post.”

“No, my lord, but I came—”

“Were you a guard of the citadel, the law would dictate your death. Even as a captain of the rangers, you have severely offended.”

Faramir strives within himself. He can be stripped of his captaincy, he knows: shamed before his men, before Gondor. He can be exiled, perhaps, or jailed.

But Boromir may be dying.

“Father,” he says, and he keeps his voice from quailing. “I have had a vision. Does not my brother lie within, calling for me from his sickbed?”

Denethor looks at him then, examining his face. “Perhaps you have something of Númenor in you after all,” he says. “Boromir is indeed ill.”

Faramir swallows. “How is he?” he asks. “For when I saw him, he had hardly the strength to speak.”

Denethor waves a hand. “Go to him,” he says. “But when he is recovered, we will speak of your failure to your duty.”

Faramir departs in haste. For seven days he stays by Boromir’s side, tending him faithfully. When Boromir is sitting up in bed for large parts of the day, even walking a little, Denethor enters the chamber.

Faramir rises to leave, as has been previously expected of him during his father’s visits. But Denethor shakes his head.

“Stay, captain,” he says. “I would have words with you in a moment.”

Faramir bows. “Of course, my lord.”

Boromir looks uneasily at Faramir, for Faramir kept nothing from him once he was well enough to ask. But he, too, rises.

“Father,” he says, and he embraces Denethor. “Forgive me, I fear the taint of herbs surrounds me still.”

“As long as they have done their work,” Denethor says. He draws back to look Boromir over. “And it seems they have, along with the strength of your constitution.”

“And the excellence of Faramir’s nursing,” Boromir says, with a laugh. “I should have perished of dullness had I been subjected to the healers these many days.”

Faramir knows that Boromir wishes him to join in the laughter. But this meeting does not include him; when it does, he will know. So he keeps quiet, though he lets his lips flicker upward that Boromir may know his words are not wasted.

Denethor, however, says only, “Your return to health fills me with joy, my son.” And he claps his hands to Boromir’s shoulders, smiling.

Boromir smiles in turn, and Faramir looks away until he feels Denethor’s gaze draw his upwards.

“As for you,” says Denethor.

“Father,” Boromir begins, “surely—”

Denethor interrupts. “Faramir’s actions were a military offense, and he must be dealt with accordingly. Surely you would not allow your men to ride off in the night, claiming visions?”

Boromir opens his mouth. Faramir catches his eye and shakes his head, bidding him shut it again. Denethor clears his throat.

“Since you have determined, Captain Faramir, that your men can continue well enough without you,” he says, “so they will have to do a while longer. You will serve fourteen days of confinement to quarters in the guardhouse on the third level.”

“Father,” Boromir begins again, but Denethor is already sweeping out, already speaking to the guards in the hall.

“Starlit tombs,” says Boromir. He starts to pace, unsteadily.

“Sit down,” Faramir says, “or you will relapse, and this time be forced to endure the healers.”

Boromir sits down. “You were always too wise for your years,” he says. “Did you not say at the first that visions make a miserable gift?”

**\--WEST--**

 “The others I understood,” Faramir says. “This one, not so.”

They are sore in body from swimming the waters of Anduin and weary of heart from the great defeat they have suffered. They and the two who survived with them have made camp now under the sun, after fighting and fleeing through the night. The two with them are fast asleep now, and Faramir should be, but too much weighs upon his heart.

He has seen again. In a dream, this time, not a vision, yet the true difference lies not there.

“Faramir, lore-master, confounded by a simple dream?” Boromir says, as lightly as he can. “To think I have lived to see it.”

Faramir shakes his head. “The others were clear,” he insists. “I saw you in danger, and such occurred in fact. This—I dreamed a prophecy; that is the nearest I can come.”

“Visions and now prophecies.” Boromir shoves him lightly. “You shall be a wizard before you are sixty.”

Faramir shoves him back, and they settle a little closer together—there is no need to huddle for warmth at this time of year, but Faramir feels some childish urge for closeness now.

“I saw the eastern sky grow dark,” he says, and his gaze dwells on the horizon. “Yet not all light was lost, for behind me westward something shone. And a voice I do not know cried out to me.”

“With what words?” Boromir asks, in hushed tones.

And Faramir recites:

_Seek for the Sword that was broken:_   
_In Imladris it dwells;_   
_There shall counsel be taken_   
_Stronger than Morgul-spells._   
_There shall be shown a token_   
_That Doom is near at hand,_   
_For Isildur’s Bane shall waken,_   
_And the Halfling forth shall stand._

When he looks back at Boromir, he finds him laughing softly.

“It must be a prophecy,” Boromir says. “For why else would it be so entangled?”

“Yet it is also a command,” says Faramir. “Seek. In Imladris, which I know not of. A place, perhaps.”

“ _Counsel stronger than Morgul-spells_ ,” Boromir repeats. “Well, we have need of that. Heard you the tales of the figure in black?”

“Aye,” says Faramir. “I saw nothing, myself, but I felt the shadow.”

“Perhaps it is true, then, and the shadow-rider is Isildur’s Bane. Awakening.”

“You have forgotten all your history,” Faramir scolds. “Isildur was slain by orc-arrows, ’tis said.”

“So your prophecy speaks of a broken sword and a sleeping orc-arrow.”

Faramir shoves him again. “This is no laughing matter!”

They laugh anyway, letting quiet hysteria fill them with the relief of survival and keep at bay the despair of loss. They end up lying on the ground at angles to each other, Faramir’s head on Boromir’s shoulder.

“We should take this to Father,” Boromir says at last. “He is a lore-master; perhaps he will know more of Imladris and Isildur’s Bane than we.”

Faramir shifts uneasily. “Perhaps.”

Boromir sighs. “You would prefer not? Faramir, last time—he was not angered by your vision. Only by your choice in response to it. He cannot confine you to quarters for dreaming, nor would he.”

“I know,” Faramir says. “Yet my heart is wary. And I am sure he will find fault with me over this defeat, and the loss of so many. I would wait to address it until he is less displeased with me.”

“This is my defeat as much as yours,” Boromir says softly. “More.”

Faramir only sighs.

Boromir sits up, moving Faramir’s head to rest on his lap. “It is my watch,” he says. “Sleep, brother.”

Faramir closes his eyes, and the west wind blows warm through his hair.

**\--NORTH--**

The winds still blow strong, and he dreams again. And again. At length, Boromir dreams too, and they seek advice from their father, for all of Faramir’s studies on return to Minas Tirith have yielded him no clarity. Ere a month has passed from the first appearance of the riddle, Boromir is readying his gear and plotting his course, north and west through Rohan.

Faramir’s heart is heavy with foreboding. After all, have not his previous visions been of Boromir, hurt or ill? And now at the call of this latest Boromir undertakes the longest journey of his life, alone, through wild lands.

Such is not least among the reasons Faramir knows it is he who should undertake this errand, but both Boromir and Denethor are against him. Their combined wills he has not the power to fight.

When Boromir is several days gone, Faramir stands on the walls looking after him, and the wind is fierce in his face. It whips his hair around him, pulls his cloak from his grasp. And as he thinks with longing of his brother, the steady rush turns in his ears to beating hooves.

He sees nothing, but he hears. Boromir’s mail clinks; his saddle creaks. _Poetry_ , he is saying to himself. _Dream poetry. What a brother I have._

Faramir laughs. When Boromir’s dream came, whatever powers sent it saw fit to reduce it for him. Rather than include the prophecy in full, the voice told him only, “Doom is near at hand. Isildur’s Bane is found.”

 _And now I must remember this thrice-damned poem_ , Boromir goes on. _You are lucky to be a horse, Darlanc. You did not spend your youth with tutors and long lays…_

The clopping of Darlanc’s hooves fades out, and wind fills Faramir’s ears again.

\----

 _Blasted little twittering birds_ , he hears weeks later. _Faramir would take an interest in the things. Red. No red songbirds in Gondor, are there? Pox on it, I do not know._

And he tells no one, but he clasps the words to his heart, for they tell him Boromir is well.

\----

The new year comes before he hears any further word, and the news is no longer good. He hears heavy breaths and chattering teeth, and for a moment he thinks that Boromir is feverish again. But then the familiar voice breaks in.

 _Confound the North_ , Boromir says. _I tell you, Aragorn, a lack of frost and snow is not least among the reasons I shall be glad to see Gondor again. Of all perils, I do not favor cold._

There is another voice, answering, but Faramir cannot make it out. He hears Boromir laugh.

_Had winter any fear of blades, you and I should make him run. Alas that we can but endure him!_

There is another answer, and then the voices fade.

So Boromir has found a companion on his journey—the journey homewards, it must be by now. Faramir’s heart is glad, and he wonders whether this Aragorn is an elf out of Imladris sent to aid them in the wars. He wonders, too, about the answer to the riddle, but he is too circumspect to hope that such will be revealed to his thoughts. It will be enough to have Boromir returned, safe, and to share again the weight of commanding on the front lines.

\----

He hears more often, then. Noises of battle, of running, of camp at night. There are other companions, he begins to guess. He hears Boromir speak words of comfort over two of them, who grieve, and love fills him. But loneliness creeps at the edges, for in all these long months he has had little enough company, and no comfort.

\----

In mid-February he returns to Minas Tirith to take counsel with Denethor over dwindling supplies on the front lines. Once he has arrived he is pressed to stay, for there are questions on the training of new cadets and the production of weapons. He is busy until late into the evenings, but finds often that he cannot sleep. Ever he awaits Boromir’s voice, awaits some sign.

For he is not the only one grown anxious, now. The whole city speaks of Boromir in tones hushed with hope and dread.

On the twenty-sixth the air is still, so still that Faramir fears to disturb it with his breathing. Still he goes about his tasks, reviewing the cadets in dim light of dawn and later presenting his suggestions for future changes to the captains who train them.

It is past noon when he begins the climb back to the upper circles of the city, though the day has grown no brighter. Yet as he makes his way homewards, thinking only of rest before he faces another meeting with his father, a mighty wind arises from the North and he hears.

Boromir’s horn, blowing clear and strong.

Faramir runs up to the walls, staring out, for hope beyond hope comes to him that despite the lack of news, this is yet the sound of Boromir’s return.

He sees nothing. Clouds rush past the sun, and when the horn-call comes again, the guards nearby do not turn.

Faramir waits. There will be a word, he thinks, or some other sound; there is always something else.

But there is not, and the sound of the horn grows weaker—not as though the distance increases, but as though the blower gasps for breath. Faramir, too, cannot breathe. In trembling and fear and desperate hope, he waits.

The horn-calls cease.

\----

“Why,” says Denethor, “have you seen fit to keep this from me?”

Faramir bows his head. “Until now I heard nothing which could be considered true tidings,” he says. “You have many duties, as have I, and I deemed it unnecessary to draw you aside and relay Boromir’s thoughts on the red songbirds of the northern wilds.”

“It was your duty, at the least, to report that such was taking place,” Denethor says. He rises from the Steward’s seat, turning aside—perhaps, Faramir thinks, so he need not see his youngest son when he so longs for the sight of his eldest. “This is ill news. Alas, alas for Boromir!”

“My heart is heavy,” Faramir confesses. “For why would he blow upon the horn unless in some great need?”

“Why indeed,” Denethor mutters. “And why would he have set upon this venture, to his doom, were it not for all your dreams and visions? Your gift is a curse on this house! Never has it brought aught but misery.”

Retorts rise quickly to Faramir’s lips, but he bites them back. “His doom is not yet certain,” he says.

Denethor wrings his hands a moment more, then snaps back to Faramir. “How long until you have finished your business in the city?”

Faramir blinks. “Three days, my lord. Perhaps two.”

“I would have you pass some time in Osgiliath before you set out for Ithilien,” says Denethor. “There has been disarray there, or so I am told.”

“Two days, then,” says Faramir. “I will be ready.”

He bows. Denethor inclines his head.

“Unless you hear further tidings ere you depart,” he says, “you need not report again.”

\----

The winds continue to blow from the north, yet Faramir hears no further tidings. With each passing hour, his heart sinks within him. And when he sees the boat upon the water, the news it bears is no surprise.

The wind has told him already.


End file.
